


The Last Malice

by bread_and_tea



Category: Sharing Knife - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Luthlia, Maker tech, Malice - Freeform, Original Characters - Freeform, Post-Canon, out with a wimper
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-04-17
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23697061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bread_and_tea/pseuds/bread_and_tea
Summary: Fawn Bluefield first came up with the idea in the kitchen at Clearcreek, just speculating a bit but striking gold nonetheless, as was her habit. “Did you know that plants talk to each other, in their ground? Some patroller told Whit they can even warn each other of danger, like when there’s an attack of aphids or grasshoppers coming. And I got to thinking, they probably warn each other of Malices, since those are just as much a threat to plants as they are to people. And wouldn’t it be something if we could hear those warnings too?"Or what happens when there's a sudden improvement in Malice detection technology.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 29





	The Last Malice

Fawn Bluefield first came up with the idea in the kitchen at Clearcreek, just speculating a bit but striking gold nonetheless, as was her habit. “Did you know that plants talk to each other, in their ground? Some patroller told Whit they can even warn each other of danger, like when there’s an attack of aphids or grasshoppers coming. And I got to thinking, they probably warn each other of Malices, since those are just as much a threat to plants as they are to people. And wouldn’t it be something if we could hear those warnings too? Plants must know about Malices a lot sooner than we do. Stands to reason, since there’s hardly anywhere a Malice could emerge where it wouldn’t have plants to start ground ripping.” Dag and Arkady Redwing exchanged a look and pretty soon any patroller who passed through Clearcreek got assigned the extra duty of studying plant grounds.

It took Dag, Arkady, and the many makers who visited their medicine tent years of study to find the right kind of plant for their warning system. At first they focused on trees, but in the end it was the fungi that lived at the root of the trees that gave them the structure they needed to create the first monitoring station. Within a few bare years of that first station going live, a whole network dotted the sparsely populated northern Hinterlands. Staffed by trusted ground-shielded farmers and eager Lakewalkers whose short ground range would have otherwise kept them in camp, the stations freed the patrols to concentrate on the more populated areas where a Malice emergence would more quickly get out of hand. While each station was armed with at least two sharing knives gifted to them from those willed to the nearest camp, they were meant for emergencies only. The stations detected Malices early, and that meant there was time to send for a full patrol. But emergencies had a way of happening, and more than one station patrol ended up riding out to dispatch a mobile Malice that had wandered into their detection zone.

The stations quickly proved their worth, and as the makings were refined over time, they became more reliable than the patrols, and it didn’t take long for stations to start popping up in cities and towns. As time passed, fewer and fewer Malices emerged. The distinction between Lakewalker and farmer blurred. The stations and patrols were maintained, but for tradition’s sake rather than any felt need. The patrols became a way for youngsters to see the world and gain confidence or discipline, whichever was required. The stations, especially the ones far north, became an honor bestowed on the unremarkable and the annoying. 

✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎

_Wolf Ridge Monitoring Station, Luthlia_

Oli Whitefox wasn’t asleep at the console, but it was close. They were trying to read, but the dark days of winter made it hard for them to keep their eyes open. Even _The Battle of Deep Wells_ , the new historical novel about the farmer village that took out a Malice all on their own, wasn’t gripping enough to chase off the yawns. Gator Wainwright always teased that Oli should be called Whitebear instead, due to their predilection toward hibernation, to which Niva Arctic Tern always replied that white bears didn’t hibernate. 

Niva was currently filling in the duty log, even though nothing had happened in the last hour except Gator had finished the first sleeve of the sweater she was knitting. Niva enjoyed the paperwork, and since no one else bothered to read the logs, she could add details to her heart’s content. Oli idly wondered how many of Gator’s sweaters had made it into those log books. Knowing Niva, all of them, down to the very stitch pattern used. 

A ringing in their ears roused Oli from the fringes of a nap and solidified into a faint beeping coming from the vicinity of their feet. Oli’s feet happened to be lodged on the edge of the console, near the sensor read out. They sat up abruptly, feet and book both spilling to the floor.

“Um.”

Gator looked up. “Time for snacks?” 

Niva glanced at the time keeper on the wall. “No, it’s not. Our stores won’t last until the next restock if we snack everything away. Our rations are rationed for a reason.”

Gator’s eye roll was obvious in her voice. “I do know how to forage. I can pad out the pantry if we start to run low.”

“I don’t want to live on moss tea for a week like last time.”

“It wasn’t a full week, which I’m sure you can verify from your logs. And it wasn’t just moss tea. We had dried plunkin too.”

“The combination was worse than its parts.”

“Um.” Oli was nose to knob with the console now, blinking to focus on the tiny, dust mote of a red light blinking on the map overlay. This could not be happening.

The last Malice had emerged over eighty years ago in Raintree. It had gone down easy, as had come to be expected. But a full walking patrol, with long-range ground scouts and everything, had been the ones to take it out. After twenty years with no more Malices, people had begun to relax. After forty, the common assumption was that there weren’t any Malices left. Tradition died harder than that, which is why Oli, Gator and Niva were stuck up on Wolf Ridge. But tradition wasn’t experience, and Oli couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“Um, Niva. Do you have the sensor manual handy?”

Niva swiveled to look at Oli. “Yes, of course.” She pulled it from the bookcase behind her. “Why?”

“Remind me of what a blinking red light means?”

Niva frowned without opening the manual. “That’s the signal for a Malice emergence. You know that, Oli.”

“I think you two need to come look at this.” Oli pushed back from the console and pointed.

Gator headed over, still knitting. Niva closed the log book and joined her. They both stared at the little red speck.

“Absent gods, it’s a Malice!” Gator sounded more excited than terrified.

Niva checked another part of the display. “The nearest patrol is on the other side of the Beartooth Mountains. We should signal Leech Lake to send for them. They should be here in a week or so. We’ll monitor the situation in the meantime.”

“I wish they’d installed a talker here too. We could contact the patrol ourselves.” Oli's right foot was starting to jig, a sure sign they needed to get out of the cabin and get some fresh air. But air wasn’t the only thing out there anymore. Now there was a _Malice_.

Niva shrugged, opening the short burst box to send the signal. She didn’t have to write the message out first, since she had the burst code memorized. “No one thought it was necessary. And It wouldn’t get them here any faster. Half an hour won’t make that much of a difference.”

“Tell that to Glassforge.” 

Gator pushed her way between them. “The Glassforge Malice had at least one molt, maybe more. This little thing isn’t even out of the ground yet, Oli!”

“How do you know that?” 

“It’s in the manual! The beep frequency and the intensity of the red light indicates if the Malice is sessile or mobile. Or still underground. And that,” she poked the screen, “is definitely underground.”

Niva nodded in agreement. “Since it hasn’t even rightfully emerged, it will for sure still be sessile when the patrol gets here. Protocol is for us to monitor the situation and keep the camp informed of any changes.”

“Why wait for the patrol when we can take it out now?” Gator gestured to the glass-fronted box on the wall that held the station’s sharing knives. They had two, willed to the station over half a century ago. “You never know, maybe it’s coming up under a big mess of earthworms, and it’ll molt immediately and form an army of earthworm mud men!”

Oli shuddered at the image. “Are those knives even still good? What if they fall to dust right when we go to stab the Malice?”

“Of course they’re still good. I check them every week and note it down in the log book. It’s the Stationmaster's duty to inform the camp if a replacement is needed.” Niva tapped her chin, which she did when she was reminding herself to remember something. “But they are getting old. I don’t expect them to last much longer.”

“Is there even a replacement available? I don’t know the last time I heard about someone sharing.” Oli rubbed their arms, trying to chase off the chill that felt like it was settling in for good long visit.

“Not our problem!” Gator dropped her knitting in her basket and whirled to face the other two. “Get your coats on, we’ve got a Malice to slay!”

✴︎ ✴︎ ✴︎

Gator was adamant about going, so Oli and Niva went too because they were pretty sure Gator would get herself killed if she went alone. She’d only been in Luthlia for three years, and that wasn’t the same as growing up there. 

They packed as if for a winter camping trip. Niva was darkly pleased to finally have a chance to bring along her emergency pack, with the first aid kit and pick ax and flares.

Even though it was winter in Luthlia, it wasn’t really the snowy season yet. There was snow, to be sure, but you could still see the ground in places. It was a small blessing. Oli felt a little green when they thought about having to dig a Malice out of a snow bank.

It took the group about two days to get near the spot Niva had marked on the map. Neither Niva nor Oli could sense the Malice yet, and there was no sign of spreading blight. They decided to veil tight anyway. Gator had some ground sense, but none of them were sure if it would be enough to fight off a beguilement, so she was wearing a ground shield. 

When they got close enough, Oli pulled out the handheld sensor. It was for pinpointing a Malice’s location, and the groundwork on it was simple enough for Oli to maintain on their own. Or at least that’s what the camp makers said, and Oli fervently hoped it was true. Now was not the time to discover that they had been reinforcing the making wrong all these years.

Oli poked at the sensor with their ground, activating the device. Then they paced back and forth in the grid formation they’d read about in all those patroller novels, waiting for the fungal panic to crescendo and alert them to the Malice’s precise location. 

After quartering the area for half an hour, Oli abruptly dropped the sensor and took a huge step back from a plain bit of rocky soil. They’d been veiling as hard as they could, but apparently that hadn’t been good enough because now they looked a bit green around the edges. “It’s down there,” they managed, before dropping into a squat and putting their head on their knees. 

“Uh.” Gator kicked at the earth, dislodging only a few pebbles from the top layer. “I think the dirt’s frozen.”

“Good thing I brought a pick ax, then, isn’t it?” Niva, who was very diligent about her ground veiling lessons and seemed unaffected by her proximity to the buried Malice, pulled the ax from her emergency pack and handed it to Gator. Gator, for her part, didn’t argue about having to do the dirty work. She set to chipping away at the hardened soil with gusto.

Even Gator’s legendary energy wasn’t enough to get her down to the Malice on the first go. She took turns at the digging with Niva, who didn’t enjoy the activity half as much, but worked just as hard. Oli, by silent agreement, was left to monitor the sensor from their seated position downwind, because every time they tried to stand, they nearly puked up breakfast. 

It was nearing twilight and Oli was starting to think they should all just set up camp a ways away and wait for the Malice to pop its head up like a marmot in spring, when Gator made a disgusted noise. “Ew, gross. There’s something down there.” 

Niva crawled over from her exhausted sprawl by the packs and peered into the hole. “Oh, absent gods. It’s _pulsing_.”

“That may be the nastiest thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve looked for nasty in my day.” Gator announced. She sat down with a thump, pick ax just missing her foot. “Do it, Niva. Poke it with a sharing knife.”

Niva tried to undo the laces of her pack, but her fingers had stiffened into claws from the cold and the unaccustomed labor. “Shit, I can’t get the pack open!”

Oli had never heard Niva swear, not even when Gator accidentally set the station roof on fire. Gator took a try at the laces, but her hands were in even worse shape, bleeding a little and all over blisters. They both turned to look at Oli, who heaved a nauseated sigh but crawled over to them anyway.

The closer Oli got to that hole in the ground, the worse their stomach felt. But it’s not like the three of them could just leave the Malice all dug up like that. Some poor animal could fall in and hasten it’s molt, and then it could just crawl right out of the hole that Gator and Niva had helpfully excavated. 

Oli reached the pack and tugged at the laces, opening the flap after only a short struggle. The knife was nestled safely in its sheath, wrapped in one of Gator’s sweaters. Oli gripped it tightly and held their breath as they leaned over to look in the hole. 

The Malice was pupal, pale and pulsating and vile. Oli fumbled in shock and disgust and the knife fell from their fingers. They watched in horror as it dropped, point first, towards solid, frozen earth. But it did not hit the rock hard-soil and shatter. The knife fell right in the Malice hole, missing the edges by a mouse’s breath. It landed on the left flank of the mass and looked like it was going to bounce off, but it must have penetrated enough, because in the next second, the gross thing just _exploded_. 

Oli could feel it in their ground, even though they were tightly veiled. They fell right over, landing on their back and gripping their chest where they could still feel the silent concussion of the unmaking. Oli turned to look at Niva and Gator, who are sitting gape-mouthed by the packs.

“Um. I guess we should go back and update the camp?”  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Fungi are not plants. But the people of the Hinterlands haven't had the time to focus on taxonomy, what with the Malices, so they call all things of that nature "plants."


End file.
